Paul and Lucy Spadoni periodically live in Tuscany to explore Paul’s Italian roots, practice their Italian and enjoy “la dolce vita.”
All work is copyrighted and may not be reprinted without written permission from the author, who can be contacted at www.paulspadoni.com

Friday, November 24, 2017

Care for the ‘Innocenti’ born in Tuscany established a nurturing pattern of enduring tradition

During
the many hours I’ve spent poring over church archives in Pescia, I
occasionally stumble across a child baptized with the designation
‟genitori incerti” or ‟padre sconsciuto.” This indicates
that the parents or the father is unknown. I also find many parents with the surname ‟Innocenti,” or ‟degli Innocenti dell’Ospedale di
Firenze” –of the innocent of the hospital of Florence, the place
orphans were taken to be cared for, educated and adopted. Our Spadoni
family tree contains almost a dozen persons with the name
Innocenti, and I recently found one in my nonno Michele’s direct family
line, Bibbiani Degli Innocenti, born in Tuscany around 1735.

The
‟Hospital of the Innocents” also known in old Tuscan dialect as
‟Spedale degli Innocenti,” is a historic building designed in 1419
by Filippo Brunelleschi, the same man who later designed the famous
Duomo
of Firenze. According to Lawrence Kahn, writing in the journal
Pediatrics, the Ospedale in Florence is the oldest known institution
continuously devoted to the welfare of children. It has provided care
of infants and children continuously for more than five and half
centuries. Although the Ospedale as an organization ceased to exist
in 1875, the building still serves as a child care center and
provides community child welfare services, including placement in
foster care. It also houses a small collection of Renaissance art as well as a museum honoring the hospital’s history.

L'Ospedale degli Innocenti, Firenze

According
to historian H. Saalman, the concept of ospedali in Florence dates
back to the 13th century. Although the name may suggest a facility
related to our modern hospital, it was closer to a hospice for the
sick poor or a sanctuary for the abandoned or dispossessed, both
young and old. Revenue came from bequests of money and land.

In
1294, the General Council of the Florentine Population delegated
responsibility for the care of the “innocenti” to a powerful
guild in the city, the “Arte della Seta,” or Silk Guild. For more
than a century, the guild had had substantial experience in providing
sanctuary for foundlings. In 1419, they requested and obtained the
right to a bequest of 1000 florins to build a facility entirely for
children. The Silk Guild planned to present the Ospedale degli
Innocenti to Florence as a grand demonstration of their beneficence
to the city. It also reflected the importance they assigned to the
care of abandoned infants “deserted by their parents contrary to
the law of nature.”

La Ruota degli Innocenti in Firenze, the wheel
where babies could be left anonymously.

Children
were sometimes abandoned in a basin which was located at the front
portico. However, this basin was removed in 1660 and replaced by a
wheel for secret refuge. A door with a special rotating horizontal wheel brought the baby into
the building without the parent being seen. This allowed people to
leave their babies anonymously, to be cared for by the orphanage.
This system was in operation until the hospital’s closure in 1875.
Writer Pier Paolo Viazzo quoted an epigraph written on the occasion
of the closing by a distinguished Florentine, Isidoro Del Lungo: “For
four centuries this was the wheel of the Innocents, secret refuge
from misery and shame for those to whom charity never closed its
door.”

La Guardia alla Ruota dei Trovatelli,
Gioacchino Toma (1846-1891)

The
“Innocenti” policy established foundlings as individuals
deserving the respect of society, Kahn observed. ‟Care sometimes
continued for several years,” he wrote. ‟Typically, an infant was
nursed at the facility until it was feasible to transfer him or her
to a wet nurse in the countryside. After weaning, the infant was
returned to the ‘Innocenti,’ where he or she might remain until
ready for transfer to a foster home. Often they were placed with a
family where they might learn a trade. Girls might stay at the
‘spedale’ until they could be provided with a dowry from a donor
or public source. For others, it became a training school to prepare
children for their future occupations.”

Similar
hospices for orphans were created in many large Italian cities, but
the children were given different surnames, including Trovato or
Trovatelli (found), Esposito (exposed), Proietti (cast out),
Abbandonato (abandoned), and Casagrande or Dellacasagrande (of the
big house). It may seem like these names could be stigmatizing, but
orphans were quite common, and it seems that the names were not
considered at all derogatory. However, there was some sensitivity to
the possibility that such names could be a source of dishonor, and so
some ospedali later began using the name of the city, or sometimes
the month the child was born. As an interesting side note, this means
that the famous New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio probably had an orphaned
ancestor, for DiMaggio means ‟of May.”

According
to Kahn’s research, the disposition of many unwanted children had
been erratic prior to the founding of ospedali. ‟Sometimes a
foundling was left in a public place where chance alone decided his
or her fate,” he explained. ‟In addition to those who were
illegitimate, there were many infants whose parents were unable to
provide their care. As soon as 1467, the ‘Innocenti’ was caring
for 600 children and housing 200 orphans, foster mothers, or wet
nurses and men.”

Viazzo
noted that in 1647, records show that “there were 1091 children in
foster care, 28 nursing infants in the hospital, 21 wet nurses, 642
infants, children and mothers of all ages, 98 other children, 40
priests and other ministrants, the prior, and an additional 25
infants sent to San Gimignano” Throughout its history, he said, the
ospedale accepted 375 000 infants and young children.

Kahn,
who was writing for a publication of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, explained why the Ospedale has a special significance to
the AAP.

The della Robbia's bambino that inspired the AAP logo

‟When
people looked at the building during its early years, they saw 10
blank roundels, concave circular frames set within the spandrels, the
spaces created between the arches. Then in 1487, four decades after
Brunelleschi’s death, the 10 ‘bambini’ by Luca della Robbiawere mounted in the roundels. In 1845, two additional pairs of
‘bambini,’ reproductions of some of the originals, were installed
at either end.”Each
of the originals is unique. Seven are fully swaddled from thorax to
toe, and two are depicted with the swaddling clothes still tied but
sagging below the waist or knees. In 1939, the AAP chose a slight
variation of a baby with swaddling clothes untied for its insignia.

‟What
della Robbia had in mind with this one variation is hard to say,”
Kahn continued. ‟Perhaps the loosened swaddling clothes represent
liberation from the constraining stigma of the foundling origins of
the ‘bambino.’ Modern pediatricians might consider it a symbol of
emancipation from health care practices based on ignorance. Some
might consider the unwrapped swaddling clothes as liberating children
from illness. In any event, this ‘bambino’ is robust and free.
Ultimately the AAP chose this ‘bambino’ for its insignia . . .
the AAP chose well.”-----------------For more on the Innocenti at the Firenze ospedale, read http://livingwithabroadintuscany.blogspot.com/2018/04/visit-to-museum-of-innocents-in_6.html

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First off, before you hassle me about our title, Lucy thought of it. Yes, I know some people may think broad is derogatory, but the etymology is uncertain and she doesn’t find it offensive, and it made me laugh. We have been married since 1974 and are empty-nesters now, which allows me to bring my submerged Italophilia into the open. We first came to live in Italy from February-April in 2011 and have returned during the same months every year. From 2011-2015, we lived in San Salvatore, at the foot of the hilltop city Montecarlo, where my paternal grandparents were born, raised and, in 1908, married. In late 2015, we bought a home in Montecarlo. We come for a variety of purposes: We want to re-establish contact with distant cousins in both Nonno’s and Nonna’s families, we want to learn the language and see what it is like to live as Italians in modern Italy, we like to travel and experience different cultures. Even if we aren’t successful at achieving these purposes, we love Italy and enjoy every moment here, so there is no chance we will be disappointed. I am grateful to God for giving me a wife who is beautiful, clever, adaptable and willing to jump into my dreams wholeheartedly.